wines from juices forming sediment

[texteditor]

Have been making wines from juices for about 9 months now, (recipe as wurzels):
1 litre carton 100% pure orange juice (or other).
1 litre carton pure pressed white (/red) grape juice.
1½ lb sugar.
1 tsp nutrient
G.P. yeast
½ tsp tannin
1 tsp Pectic Enzyme
1 tsp glycerine
Water to 1 gallon

Dissolve sugar in a pint or so of boiling water.

Stir all the ingredients into 1½ pints cold water till well mixed and aerated.

Top up to 1 gallon, check initial S.G. which should be about 1.090 and adjust if necessary.

Ferment as usual under air lock. Rack at 1.000 (or ferment to dry and back sweeten) and add 1 crushed Camden tablet plus potassium sorbate.

Clear as per usual and bottle, the wine is ready for immediate consumption but will improve with time.

Most of them have been excellent.

I am now noticing that some of them, particularly juices with bits in and ones where I have used extra juice rather than sugar, are starting to drop a sediment.
is this because they are being left longer in the bottle,(I am now producing faster than I can drink it)?
Or, is it the juice/ ammount of juice?
Thanks in anticipation, texteditor.

[NorthernWiner]

Once fermentation finishes, how long do you typically wait before bottling?

If you don't use fining agents (bentonite, sparkalloid, two-step), it can take a very long time for wine to completely clear and stabilise. It may look clear when bottling, but sediment can continue to drop out of solution for up to a year - or longer.

Bear in mind that the sediment itself doesn't hurt anything. If it doesn't bother you, then just enjoy it as is. But if you want your wines to truly sparkle, you may want to consider a fining agent. I like the two-step clearing product. It consists of keiselsol and chitosan (aka chitan) which is stirred into the wine, and then left to settle. It can work in as quickly as 48 hours.

[mcblades]

Hi:

I think your sediment issue is probably one of the following:

1. Wines not absolutely clear when bottled. Any sediment stirred up at final racking will end up in your bottles. Although I find that WN1 and variants clear very well without finings, the addition of finings does help to solidify the sediment and reduce the amount stirred up when racking into the final DJ for bottling (I am assuming that you rack the wine into a clean DJ before bottling it). I find Kwik Clear 2 part finings to be both economical and effective. Cost is about £4 for enough to clear 250 gallons of wine.

2. The wine has restarted fermenting in the bottle. This shouldn't happen if the wine was dry and/or had sorbate and sulphite added. I would have expected the corks to have popped if this was the case. Having said that I have 30 bottles of youngs cellar 7 white in the garage that are looking fizzy and a bit turbid. These were fined and filtered and had all the recommended additions (sulphite/sorbate etc) and the gravity was 996 when bottled. I guess when the weather warms up it will be popping all over the garage so this goes down the drain when I can get through the snow to the garage.

Good luck

Mark